Once among the NFL\u2019s most punishing running backs, Larry Johnson opens up about memory loss, intrusive thoughts and his fears over football\u2019s lasting toll<\/p>\n
In his heyday, Larry Johnson was the NFL tailback you\u2019d least want to line up against, the steamroller in pads who had defensive players and coaches questioning their life choices on every down. But since Johnson walked away from pro football in 2011, after seven seasons in the league and an All-Pro run with the Kansas City Chiefs, he\u2019s the one doing the soul-searching, grappling with the toll all that gridiron glory has taken on his brain.<\/p>\n
Johnson, who still cuts a fit and formidable figure at age 46, can scarcely recall his glittering career, much less its highlights. \u201cI go up to maybe 2006, 2007,\u201d he tells me. \u201cAnything before or three years after, I really don\u2019t remember.\u201d<\/p>\n
Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once among the NFL\u2019s most punishing running backs, Larry Johnson opens up about memory loss, intrusive thoughts and his fears over football\u2019s lasting toll In his heyday, Larry Johnson was the NFL tailback you\u2019d least want to line up against, the steamroller in pads who had defensive players and coaches questioning their life choices on … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}